by Sax Rohmer
“I am a dreamer, Sheard,” he continued, “and perhaps a trifle mad. I am trying to wield a weapon that my fathers were content to let rust in its scabbard. For the source of the influence you speak of — its emblem lies there.”
He pointed a long, thin finger to the recess veiled with its heavy Damascus curtain.
“May I see it?”
The quizzical smile returned to the fine face.
“Oh, thou of the copy-hunting soul,” exclaimed Séverac Bablon. “A day may come. But it is not to-day.”
He seized Sheard by the arm and led him out into the hall.
“Look at these three portraits,” he directed. “The three great practical investigators of the world. Mr. Brinsley Monro, of Dearborn Street, Chicago; Mr. Paul Harley, of Chancery Lane; and last, but greatest, M. Victor Lemage, of Paris.”
“Is Duquesne acting under his instructions?”
“M. Lemage took charge of the case this morning.”
Sheard looked hard at Séverac Bablon. Victor Lemage, inventor of the anthroposcopic system of identification, the greatest living authority upon criminology, was a man to be feared.
Séverac Bablon smiled, clapped both hands upon his shoulders, and looked into his eyes.
“It is the lighter side of my strange warfare,” he said. “I revel in it, Sheard. It refreshes me for more serious things. This evening you must arrange to meet me for a few moments. I shall have a ‘scoop’ to offer you for the Gleaner. Do not fail me. It will leave you ample time to get on to Downing Street afterwards. You see, I knew you were going to Downing Street to-night! Am I not a magician? I shall wire you. If, when you ring at the door of the house to which you will be directed, no one replies, go away at once. I will then communicate the news later. And now — lunch.”
CHAPTER XVIII
A WHITE ORCHID
Whoever could have taken a peep into a certain bare-looking room at Scotland Yard some three hours after Sheard had left Finchley Road must have been drawn to the conclusion that the net was closing more tightly about Séverac Bablon than he supposed.
Behind a large, bare table, upon which were some sheets of foolscap, a metal inkpot, and pens, sat Chief Inspector Sheffield. On three uncomfortable-looking chairs were disposed Detective Sergeant Harborne, he of the Stetson and brogues, and M. Duquesne, of Paris. Stetson and brogues, as became a non-official, observed much outward deference towards the Chief Inspector in whose room he found himself.
“We may take it, then,” said Sheffield, with a keen glance of his shrewd, kindly eyes towards the American and the celebrated little Frenchman, “that Bablon, when he isn’t made up, is a man so extremely handsome and of such marked personality that he’d be spotted anywhere. We have some reason to believe that he’s a Jew. The head of the greatest Jewish house in Europe has declined to deny, according to M. Duquesne, that he knows who he is, and” — consulting a sheet of foolscap— “Mr. Alden, here, from New York, volunteers the information that H. T. Sheard, of the Gleaner, went to see Bablon this morning. We are aware, from information by Sir Leopold Jesson, that this newspaper man is acquainted with B. But we can’t act on it. We understand that Bablon has a house in or near to London. None of us” — looking hard at Alden— “have any idea of the locality. There are two rewards privately offered, totalling £3,000 — which is of more interest to Mr. Alden than to the rest of us — and M. Duquesne is advised this morning that his Chief is coming over at once. Now, we’re all as wise as one another” — with a second hard look at his French confrère and Alden— “so we can all set about the job again in our own ways.”
After this interesting conference, whereof each member had but sought to pump the others, M. Duquesne, entering Whitehall, almost ran into a tall man, wearing a most unusual and conspicuous caped overcoat, silk lined; whose haughty, downward glance revealed his possession of very large, dark eyes; whose face was so handsome that the little Frenchman caught his breath; whose carriage was that of a monarch or of one of the musketeers of Louis XIII.
With the ease of long practice, M. Duquesne formed an unseen escort for this distinguished stranger.
Arriving at Charing Cross, the latter, without hesitation, entered the telegraph office. M. Duquesne also recollected an important matter that called for a telegram. In quest of a better pen he leaned over to the compartment occupied by the handsome man, but was unable to get so much as a glimpse of what he was writing. Having handed in his message in such a manner that the ingenious Frenchman was foiled again, he strode out, the observed of everyone in the place, but particularly of M. Duquesne.
To the latter’s unbounded astonishment, at the door he turned and raised his hat to him ironically.
Familiar with the characteristic bravado of French criminals, that decided the detective’s next move. He stepped quickly back to the counter as the polite stranger disappeared.
“I am Duquesne of Paris,” he said in his fluent English to the clerk who had taken the message, and showed his card. “On official business I wish to inspect the last telegram which you received.”
The clerk shook his head.
“Can’t be done. Only for Scotland Yard.”
Duquesne was a man of action. He wasted not a precious moment in feckless argument. It was hard that he should have to share this treasure with another. But in seven minutes he was at New Scotland Yard, and in fifteen he was back again to his great good fortune, with Inspector Sheffield.
The matter was adjusted. In the notebooks of Messrs Duquesne and Sheffield the following was written:
“Sheard, Gleaner, Tudor Street. Laurel Cottage, Dulwich Village, eight to-night.”
Returning to the Astoria to make arrangements for the evening’s expedition, Duquesne upon entering his room, found there a large-boned man, with a great, sparsely-covered skull, and a thin, untidy beard. He sat writing by the window, and, at the other’s entrance, cast a slow glance from heavy-lidded eyes across his shoulder.
M. Duquesne bowed profoundly, hat in hand.
It was the great Lemage.
There were overwhelming forces about to take the field. France, England and the United States were combining against Séverac Bablon. It seemed that at Laurel Cottage he was like to meet his Waterloo.
At twenty-five minutes to seven that evening a smart plain-clothes constable reported in Chief Inspector Sheffield’s room.
“Well, Dawson?” said the inspector, looking up from his writing.
“Laurel Cottage, Dulwich, was let by the Old College authorities, sir, to a Mr. Sanrack a month ago.”
“What is he like, this Mr. Sanrack?”
“A tall, dark gentleman. Very handsome. Looks like an actor.”
“Sanrack — Séverac,” mused Sheffield. “Daring! All right, Dawson, you can go. You know where to wait.”
Fifteen minutes later arrived M. Duquesne. He had been carpeted by his chief for invoking the aid of the London police in the matter of the telegram.
“Five methods occur to me instantly, stupid pig,” the great Lemage had said, “whereby you might have learnt its contents alone!”
Heavy with a sense of his own dull powers of invention — for he found himself unable to conceive one, much less five such schemes — M. Duquesne came into the inspector’s room.
“Does your chief join us to-night?” inquired Sheffield, on learning that the famous investigator was in London.
“He may do so, m’sieur; but his plans are uncertain.”
Almost immediately afterwards they were joined by Harborne, and all three, entering one of the taxi-cabs that always are in waiting in the Yard, set out for Dulwich Village.
The night was very dark, with ample promise of early rain, and as the cab ran past Westminster Abbey a car ahead swung sharply around Sanctuary Corner. Harborne, whose business it was to know all about smart society, reported:
“Old Oppner’s big Panhard in front. Going our way — Embankment is ‘up.’ I wonder what his Agency men are driving at? Alden’s
got something up his sleeve, I’ll swear.”
“I’d like a peep inside that car,” said Sheffield.
Harborne took up the speaking-tube as the cab, in turn, rounded into Great Smith Street.
“Switch off this inside light,” he called to the driver, “and get up as close alongside that Panhard ahead as you dare. She’s not moving fast. Stick there till I tell you to drop back.”
The man nodded, and immediately the gear snatched the cab ahead with a violent jerk. At a high speed they leapt forward upon the narrow road, swung out to the off-side to avoid a bus, and closed up to the brilliantly-lighted car.
It was occupied by two women in picturesque evening toilettes. One of them was a frizzy haired soubrette and the other a blonde. Both were conspicuously pretty. The fair girl wore a snow white orchid, splashed with deepest crimson, pinned at her breast. Her companion, who lounged in the near corner, her cloak negligently cast about her and one rounded shoulder against the window, was reading a letter; and Harborne, who found himself not a foot removed from her, was trying vainly to focus his gaze upon the writing when the fair girl looked up and started to find the cab so close. The light of a sudden suspicion leapt into her eyes as, obedient to the detective’s order, the taxi-driver slowed down and permitted the car to pass. Almost immediately the big Panhard leapt to renewed speed, and quickly disappeared ahead.
Harborne turned to Inspector Sheffield.
“That was Miss Zoe Oppner, the old man’s daughter.”
“I know,” said Sheffield sharply. “Read any of the letter?”
“No,” admitted Harborne; “we were bumping too much. But there’s a political affair on to-night in Downing Street. I should guess she’s going to be there.”
“Why? Who was the fair girl?”
“Lady Mary Evershed,” answered Harborne. “It’s her father’s ‘do’ to-night. We want to keep an eye on Miss Oppner, after the Astoria Hotel business. Wish we had a list of guests.”
“If Séverac Bablon is down,” replied Sheffield; grimly, “I don’t think she’ll have the pleasure of seeing him this evening. But where on earth is she off to now?”
“Give it up,” said Harborne, philosophically.
“Oh, she of the golden hair and the white odontoglossum,” sighed the little Frenchman, rolling up his eyes. “What a perfection!”
They became silent as the cab rapidly bore them across Vauxhall Bridge and through south-west to south-east London, finally to Dulwich Village, that tiny and dwindling oasis in the stucco desert of Suburbia.
Talking to an officer on point duty at a corner, distinguished by the presence of a pillar-box, was P.C. Dawson in mufti. He and the other constable saluted as the three detectives left the cab and joined them.
“Been here long, Dawson?” asked Sheffield.
“No, sir. Just arrived.”
“You and I will walk along on the far side from this Laurel Cottage,” arranged the inspector, “and M. Duquesne might like a glass of wine, Harborne, until I’ve looked over the ground. Then we can distribute ourselves. We’ve got a full quarter of an hour.”
It was arranged so, and Sheffield, guided by Dawson, proceeded to the end of the Village, turned to the left, past the College buildings, and found himself in a long, newly-cut road, with only a few unfinished houses. Towards the farther end a gloomy little cottage frowned upon the road. It looked deserted and lonely in its isolation amid marshy fields. In the background, upon a slight acclivity, a larger building might dimly be discerned. A clump of dismal poplars overhung the cottage on the west.
“It’s been a gate lodge at some time, sir,” explained Dawson. “You can see the old carriage sweep on the right. But the big house is to be pulled down, and they’ve let the lodge, temporarily, as a separate residence. There’s no upstairs, only one door and very few windows. We can absolutely surround it!”
“H’m! Unpleasant looking place,” muttered Sheffield, as the two walked by on the opposite side. “No lights. When we’ve passed this next tree, slip along and tuck yourself away under that fence on the left. Don’t attempt any arrest until our man’s well inside. Then, when you hear the whistle, close in on the door. I’ll get back now.”
Ten minutes later, though Laurel Cottage presented its usual sad and lonely aspect, it was efficiently surrounded by three detectives and a constable.
Sheffield’s scientific dispositions were but just completed when a cursing taxi-man deposited Sheard half way up the road, having declined resolutely to bump over the ruts any further. Dismissing the man, the keenest copy-hunter in Fleet Street walked alone to the Cottage, all unaware that he did so under the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes. Finding a rusty bell-pull he rang three times. But none answered.
It was at the moment when he turned away that Mr. Alden and an Agency colleague, who — on this occasion successfully — had tracked him since he left the Gleaner office, turned the corner by the Village. Seeing him retracing his steps, they both darted up a plank into an unfinished house with the agility of true ferrets, and let him pass. As he re-entered the Village street one was at his heels. Mr. Alden strolled along to Laurel Cottage.
With but a moment’s consideration, he, taking a rapid glance up and down the road, vaulted the low fence and disposed himself amongst the unkempt laurel bushes flanking the cottage on the west. The investing forces thus acquired a fifth member.
Then came the threatened rain.
Falling in a steady downpour, it sang its mournful song through poplar and shrub. Soon the grey tiled roof of the cottage poured its libation into spouting gutters, and every rut of the road became a miniature ditch. But, with dogged persistency, the five watchers stuck to their posts.
When Sheard had gone away again, Inspector Sheffield had found himself, temporarily, in a dilemma. It was something he had not foreseen. But, weighing the chances, he had come to the conclusion to give the others no signal, but to wait.
At seven minutes past eight, by Mr. Alden’s electrically lighted timepiece, a car or a cab — it was impossible, at that distance, to determine which — dropped a passenger at the Village end of the road. A tall figure, completely enveloped in a huge, caped coat, and wearing a dripping silk hat, walked with a swinging stride towards the ambush — and entered the gate of the cottage.
M. Duquesne, who, from his damp post in a clump of rhododendrons on the left of the door had watched him approach, rubbed his wet hands delightedly. Without the peculiar coat that majestic walk was sufficient.
“It is he!” he muttered. “The Séverac!”
With a key which he must have held ready in his hand, the new-comer opened the door and entered the cottage. Acting upon a pre-arranged plan, the watchers closed in upon the four sides of the building, and Sheffield told himself triumphantly that he had shown sound generalship. With a grim nod of recognition to Alden, who appeared from the laurel thicket, he walked up to the door and rang smartly.
This had one notable result. A door banged inside.
Again he rang — and again.
Nothing stirred within. Only the steady drone of the falling rain broke the chilling silence.
Sheffield whistled shrilly.
At that signal M. Duquesne immediately broke the window which he was guarding, and stripping off his coat, he laid it over the jagged points of glass along the sashes and through the thickness of the cloth forced back the catch. Throwing up the glassless frame, he stepped into the dark room beyond.
To the crash which he had made, an answering crash had told him that Detective-sergeant Harborne had effected an entrance by the east window.
Cautiously he stepped forward in the darkness, a revolver in one hand; with the other he fumbled for the electric lamp in his breast pocket.
As his fingers closed upon it a slight noise behind him brought him right-about in a flash.
The figure of a man who was climbing in over the low ledge was silhouetted vaguely in the frame of the broken window.
“Ah!” hissed
Duquesne. “Quick! speak! Who is that?”
“Ssh! my Duquesne!” came a thick voice. “Do you think, then, I can leave so beautiful a case to anyone?”
Duquesne turned the beam of the lantern on the speaker.
It was Victor Lemage.
Duquesne bowed, lantern in hand.
“Waste no moment,” snapped Lemage. “Try that door!” pointing to the only one in the room.
As the other stepped forward to obey, the famous investigator made a comprehensive survey of the little kitchen, for such it was. Save for its few and simple appointments, it was quite empty.
“The door is locked.”
“Ah, yes. I thought so.”
“Hullo!” came Sheffield’s voice through the window, “who’s there, Duquesne?”
“It is M. Lemage. M’sieur, allow me to make known the great Scotland Yard Inspector Sheffield.”
With a queer parody of politeness, Duquesne turned the light of his lantern alternately upon the face of each, as he mentioned his name.
Sheffield bowed awkwardly. For he knew that he stood in the presence of the undisputed head of his profession — the first detective in Europe.
“You have not left the front door unguarded, M’sieur the Inspector?” inquired Lemage sharply.
“No, Mr. Lemage,” snapped Sheffield, “I have not. My man Dawson is there, with an Agency man, too.”
“Then we surround completely the room in which he is,” declared Lemage.
Such was the case, as a glance at the following plan will show.
“There are, then, three ways,” said Lemage. “We may break into the front room from here, or from the room where is m’sieur your colleague. There is, no doubt, a door corresponding to this one. The other way is to go in by the window of that front room, for I have made the observation that its other window, that opens on the old drive to the east, is barred most heavily. Do I accord with the views of m’sieur?”
“Quite,” said Sheffield crisply. “We’ll work through the front window. Hullo, Harborne!”
